E3 2008: Home Eyes-on

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We explore some of the virtual spaces between spaces.

By Jeff Haynes

With all of the Avatar and Mii-based talk from Microsoft and Nintendo at this E3, we were wondering about Sony's virtual avatar space. We've known that the open beta for the service was scheduled to come out in fall of this year, but we hadn't seen many of the changes that have slowly been taking place in the virtual space. Luckily, at E3, we were shown some of the new spaces that users will be able to experience when the experience is opened up later this year.

The first place that was being showcased was the SCEA Home Plaza, a space that is designed for North American users to congregate and check out. Ostensibly, each region will have their own space, but the SCEA region was designed around a modern urban feel, with a number of sleek angular buildings, including an apartment building that appeared to be very open and airy thanks to its glass walls. The Plaza also had a large fountain/lagoon space with a number of remote control boats that users could play with as they passed the time, or go to an open air jukebox and performance space to dance to the music that's being played. Users could also visit a movie theater to see different video clips being shown or even potentially different trailers for upcoming titles. The specifics on what was going to be shown at that moment were still being held closely to the vest. Apart from that, there will be news tickers that will be placed along structures to provide information to visitors about game related news.

We wanted to check out some of the new themed spaces that we'd been shown at the press conference, so we pulled out a virtual PSP and selected The Uncharted Bar from amongst a number of locations. While you won't instantly jump from one location to another, the areas will be splayed out in snapshot form in front of you, allowing you to click on one space and start your transfer from one place to another. The screen blurs, a small loading bar pops up, and in a few seconds, you appear in your new location. The Uncharted Bar had a tropical feel to it, with posters of Nathan and Elena hung on the walls as well as old maps and other items. Apart from the bar, there were arcade machines and other virtual items that were specifically tied to this space. Supposedly, players will even be able to go through these spaces and enter new rooms to explore additional content within these themed areas, but we were restrained from seeing everything.

What we were told is that there will be a number of these virtual spaces populating the open beta when it launches. All of the spaces will have three different facets that will help define them: media that will be relevant to their particular community, specialized virtual items and fully branded spaces. We're hoping that we can get into the beta soon, because we want to explore what Home has to offer.